As President Obama and lawmakers from both parties begin to take their first tentative steps toward again rewriting the nation’s immigration laws, opponents warn that they are repeating the mistakes of the 1986 act, which failed to solve the problems that it set out to address.

A lie: it was intended to fail. The employers built in a subterfuge, intentionally, as described further in the article (with absolutely no sense of outrage expressed). The politicians never intended to enforce the ’86 act.

The latest proposals contain the same three components as the 1986 law….

“This is the same old formula we’ve dealt with before, including when it passed in 1986, and that is a promise of enforcement and immediate amnesty,” Sen. David Vitter (R-La.) said last week on the Laura Ingraham radio show. “And, of course, the promises of enforcement never materialize. The amnesty happens immediately, the millisecond the bill is signed into law.” [emphasis added]

And then we have the following, utterly without irony:

But immigration experts [sic] note that the country has undergone big changes since then.

LOL! Sure thing–and what might those “changes” be?

The most obvious difference between now and a quarter-century ago is demographic. In those days, the Latino vote was not much of a political factor outside a handful of states. Only 3 percent of those who cast ballots in the 1984 presidential election were Hispanic; last year, they made up 10 percent of the electorate. Their growing numbers and increasingly Democratic tilt were considered a crucial factor in Obama’s victory, as well as a serious problem for Republicans in the future.

Well, duh!….and why might that be? Did it just happen? Mysteriously?….poof!….7 million more Hispanics just materialized? NO. It was because of the amnesty, and resulting increase in births and chain migration that it “happened.” The demographic change was engineered by the 1986 Act.

In 1980, when he defeated Jimmy Carter and destroyed the Democratic Party’s national coalition, Ronald Reagan won the white vote by 20 points. In 2012, when famed car-elevator enthusiast Mitt Romney lost to Barack Obama, he also won the white vote. He won it by 20 points. But in 32 years, the Hispanic share of the electorate quintupled from 2 percent to 10 percent.

The reason, as any demographics-obsessed conservative could tell you, was the 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act. Passed by a Democratic House, signed by Reagan, it legalized 2.8 million mostly-Hispanic border-crossers. The new Americans brought their families up from Mexico. They had kids. According to the Public Policy Institute of California, the state’s Hispanic birthrate rose from 3.2 children per woman in 1987 to 4.4 in 1991. And 21 years later, Reagan’s own California had become a Democratic landslide state. John McCain’s Arizona gave Democrats five of nine available House seats. Sen. Jeff Flake only barely won his 2012 race, because 18 percent of voters were Hispanic, and they went for the Democrat by 46 points.

The rest of the article goes on to describe in detail the fraud and misdirection surrounding the enforcement provisions, making it clear that the employers rigged the system to give themselves no culpability for reliance on obviously false documentation, along with complete non-feasance by the government. It’s all presented very matter-of-fact without any sense of the obvious disingenuousness and purposeful misdirection of the 1986 Act or current efforts.

But then the glaringly obvious question is posed:

Why so little enforcement, when the practice of hiring illegal immigrants is so widespread? Wouldn’t it be enough to just follow the law that is already on the books? (emphasis added)

Another “well, duh!” moment. But quite right! We already have a perfectly serviceable immigration/labor regime, democratically enacted–in 1986, with specific promises about enforcement!!! So what’s the answer?

One of the law’s most glaring deficiencies was that it did not stipulate or provide a secure means by which businesses could verify the legal status of those they hired. Instead, it listed dozens of documents that could be used — most of them easily falsified.

“You had a wink-and-a-nod system, where the employer was in compliance and the [illegal immigrant] could find a job….”

After all this we are given a version of the old JAWD/JAAND fraud:

Revamping the legal immigration system is an area that has had little debate. The key, experts said, will be coming up with a system that can accurately gauge the demands of the labor market, sorting out actual labor shortages from cases in which businesses are simply unwilling to pay enough to attract legal residents.

Could there be greater economic illiteracy? Or maybe it is just outright deception. “Experts” will tell whether there are “actual” “shortages”! Utterly fraudulent–by definition, a shortage means buyers are “unwilling to pay enough to attract legal residents.”

It’s all happening again…we are being systematically lied to. They are completely disingenuous in their false promises and their real intent isn’t even disguised.

The only way any amnesty should be agreed to is after a serious program of interior enforcement, against the scofflaw employers. A couple dozen lawsuits–with RICO and asset forfeiture–would concentrate the scofflaws minds wonderfully. Otherwise we can be sure that we are being hoodwinked again.

JOHN adds: Personally, I don’t understand why amnesty should be considered, now or ever. It the hard cases are presumed to be those who were brought here as children by their parents, fine–give them, and only them, a path to citizenship, assuming they have zero criminal record and there is reason to believe they will be self-supporting. But not a single additional illegal should get amnesty, and that ONLY if chain immigration is abolished.